


Black Sheep

by orphan_account



Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: Abuse, Child Abuse, Gen, Mostly Sadness, Neglect, Oneshot, Short, Some Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-17
Updated: 2014-08-17
Packaged: 2018-02-13 14:22:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2153829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charlie Dalton has always been the black sheep of his family. What finally pushed them to send him away, age ten? (Trigger warning: child abuse)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black Sheep

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: CHILD ABUSE

Sometimes, in a family, there is an odd one out. A black sheep.

In the Dalton household, this role was fulfilled by Charlie. With two older brothers, an older sister, three younger sisters and a younger brother, he was one of the older kids, and thus would normally have been relied upon in such a big family to help look after the little ones. Charlie, however, was not relied upon nor trusted with anything, as to his parents, he was rather a hopeless case.

Roman Catholics, the Dalton family embodied everything that religious people should _not_ be: judgemental, unkind, unpleasant and unwilling to forgive. Although Mr and Mrs Dalton often tried to push off their views onto their religion (“Homo's are disgusting, they're ruining this country, they're against the bible!” Mr Dalton had claimed one evening), they were simply bad people, with nothing to blame that on but themselves and their own upbringings. The other seven kids were very quickly brainwashed into behaving just as their parents...but Charlie was harder to crush.

* * *

 

Three year old Charlie sat on his bed, staring at the cot which had just been moved into his previously otherwise-empty room. Inside was his new brother, a tiny scrap of a baby with a shock of brown hair and still-blue baby eyes. The toddler felt no strong emotion towards the baby, for it was relatively quiet and ensured that his parents weren't constantly barking orders at him as they had to make sure they didn't awake it.

“Charles, Scott, dinner!”

That day, there were only three children in the house: Charlie, his oldest brother and the new arrival. His other older brother and his older sister were at some Church Youth Group, while his younger sister was on a play date with another toddler who lived nearby.

“Charles, tuck your shirt in!” Mrs Dalton snapped as Charlie sat down at his place, staring down at the plate. Kidneys and onions, his least favourite. Thankfully, it wasn't often cooked, as the two absent older children disliked it too.

“Time for grace, children, link hands.”

Grace was over quickly, and soon they were tucking in. Talking was discouraged at the Dalton dinner table, and with the diverse company – a three year old boy, a nine year old boy and two adults – there wasn't much common ground anyway. Charlie, however, was not eating. Kidneys were yucky!

“Charles, come on, eat.”

“I don't want any, mommy.” Charlie replied, looking up at her with his wide child-eyes. “I don't like kidneys.”

“You'll sit there and eat those kidneys or you'll have them for breakfast.” his mother immediately shot back. Resolutely (or, at least, as resolutely as a three year old can be), Charlie crossed his arms.

The next morning, while the other six ate toast, Charlie was staring down at the now-cold kidneys and onions, which had congealed horribly together in the least appealing way.

“Eat some, or it'll be your lunch.” Mrs Dalton chirpily told him, no hint of the malice she felt creeping into her demeanour.

By lunch time, however, the patience of both parents was wearing thin.

“Eat the damn kidneys, Charles.” Mr Dalton suddenly shouted, making everyone else jump as they ate sandwiches. 

“I don't like them.” Came his reply.

By dinner that night, he was desperate. He hadn't eaten since lunch the day before, and despite his disgust of kidneys and his mature complex, he would have to give in. Hesitantly, he took a forkful, and gagged immediately at the foul taste of cold, going-off kidneys and thick, soupy onions. Somehow, he swallowed it. Another forkful, another gagging fit.

“Go and eat in the kitchen if you're going to make such a fuss!” Mrs Dalton spat, sending him in the right direction with a hard smack.

Forkful by forkful, gag by gag, Charlie got the whole plate down, before promptly throwing up.

* * *

 

 

Charlie's eyes widened as he took in the sight before him, in the room which he shared with his younger brother: his older sister, Katherine, spitefully ripping up the grade school homework which he had neatly laid out on his bed.

“Stop it!” he shouted immediately, storming into his bedroom and snatching at the pages, trying to take them from Katherine. Being nine, his homework wasn't _taxing_ and Charlie was far in advance of most of the 'hillbillies' (by his own terms) in his class. However, it had taken him a good hour to complete the work, and his teacher would never accept that he had done it if he couldn't present it.

“Why should I?” Katherine asked, a wide smile breaking her face as she teasingly wafted the final page above Charlie's head, just beyond where he could reach. As she was fourteen, she was significantly taller than him, and as soon as he reached for it, she yanked it far away from his reach before shredding it above her head.

Charlie reacted.

Fist flying out, he slugged Katherine straight in the stomach, the softly protruding fatty layer of her developing body preventing it from hurting his hand. Without thinking, he did the same twice more, feeling a kind of sick pleasure as Katherine groaned. However, his pleasure was short lived as she grabbed him and slammed a closed fist down hard onto his crotch, her grin returning once more as he doubled over, tears which he tried so often to keep back returning to his eyes. With a final, hard shove to Charlie's shoulder, Katherine gathered up the ripped homework and shoved it in her pocket before shouting,

“Mo-om!”

After a few seconds, the short, hunched, spindly woman appeared, a doughy wooden spoon in her hand and a bowl under her arm.

“Charlie was hitting me in the stomach, and you _know_ I'm on my women's business at the moment, he's really hurt me.”

Katherine convincingly twisted her face up into a mask of misery, while Charlie stiffened where he was standing. Their mother would  _never_ believe that he had simply retaliated, not in a thousand years, so what was the point in trying to convince her?

“Charlie, you disgust me. You are _such_ a disappointment – even the littlest ones aren't as bad as you!”

Charlie simply stood still, awaiting his punishment. A little hope sprang to mind at the thought of being sent to bed early – he could then re-do his homework  _and_ escape his family for the vast majority of the day. He'd be hungry, certainly, but that was a small matter. His slither of hope was promptly crushed, however, when Mrs Dalton wiped the wooden spoon into the bowl before grabbing his arm, turning him around and whacking it hard down onto the seat of his dungarees seven or eight times, with each blow growing stronger. It was painful, certainly, but Charlie was used to it. It wasn't even the first time that week he'd been whacked, and it wouldn't be the last.

“Now apologize to Katherine.”

“Sorry, Katherine.”

* * *

 

“Mr Dalton, I'm sorry for having had to invite you in, but we've really been having some troubles with Charles recently.”

Ten year old Charlie leant back in the chair as his teacher listed off his crimes to his father: refusing to attend music lessons, disrupting class, swearing, playing pranks, lying, lying by omission (Charlie only noticed this one because his teacher's accent turned it into 'a mission') and a plethora of others.

“We've given him lines, detentions, we've paddled him, nothing seems to work.”

Mr Dalton had put his hand onto Charlie's neck early in the proceedings, and it suddenly tightened.

“What do you have to say, Charlie?” he suddenly asked, his voice sickly sweet and friendly, but to Charlie, practically dripping with malice.

“Hey, a man gets bored – there are seventy of us in my class, and I'm smarter than all of them, I can't help it!” Charlie lazily replied, beyond caring that his father would kill him for his cheek. Sure enough, he instantly got a cuff about the head, hard enough to make him reel but not as hard as his father usually did. Ah yes, his teacher was present. 

“He's always been this way, and no matter what we do he stays the same. We're considering boarding school if he doesn't improve.” Mr Dalton calmly told the teacher, not noticing that Charlie's head jolted up. Boarding school? A tiny parade ensued in his head, with banners and music. Weeks and weeks away from them at a time?

“You seem like you're trying your best, Mr Dalton, and I've never had a bother with any of your other children.”

“Just be even stricter with him, that's all I can say. We've been forced to be much stricter with Charlie than we've ever been with the others, and it still doesn't really help.”

“Thank you, Mr Dalton.”

As soon as the two figures arrived back at the Dalton household (the short walk home had been in stony silence), Mr Dalton began to yell, shaking the whole house.

“Charles, I have _NEVER_ been this embarrassed in my whole LIFE! You _repulsive_ little brat – I'm really going to teach you a lesson!”

With no teacher to save him from real brutality, Charlie crawled back into his inner shell, remaining silent as his father dragged him upstairs to his room. His smaller brother ran out immediately, knowing too well what was coming to his room-mate. A belting.

Five minutes later, Mr Dalton put his belt back on and Charlie curled up in a ball on his bed, almost inaudibly whimpering in pain and fright as he uneasily examined the thick, heavy welts on his bottom that his father had caused. Real hatred coursed through him in that moment, and came out as one deep, groaning howl.

He was broken.

* * *

 

“Charles, we can't cope with you any more. You're a pathetic, disgusting little boy, and you're poisoning our family. We've tried so hard with you, and you've always let us down. You're going to boarding school as soon as the new semester starts.”

The topic suddenly arose during dinner that same night, when Charlie, still rather tense, took his meal to the mantelpiece and stood to eat. Everyone had heart his brutal beating, and no one tried to stop him.

“Okay.” was his simple, quiet response.

Little did they know that inside his head, he was singing.

* * *

 

Four years later, the thinner, lankier, more confident teenage Charlie gladly watched as his parents left the school premises, leaving him alone in his room. This year, he'd been assigned Neil Perry to share with, a boy who had started a couple of years before him at their school, Welton, and was his good friend.

“Charlie, hey!”

Charlie turned around and grinned. “Neil – did you hear all that crap about rising new standards that Nolan rolled off during the assembly?”

Neil did not respond, however. His eyebrows had shot right up, and his face was knitted into an expression of concern. “Charlie, how did you get those bruises on your face?”

Across one cheek was a flourishing purple bruise, curling out like tendrils of a plant.

“My dad.” Charlie honestly replied. “Didn't take too well to me smashing up my instrument.”

Neil's eyes widened. “Are you-”

“Why do you look so shocked? I've seen your dad, and I've seen him hit you.” Charlie interrupted, a finger creeping up to his marred face.

“Not like that, Charlie, never like that – that's not normal. My dad's a bastard, but he'd never...look, are you alright?”

Charlie gave a tight nod.

Nothing more was said about the bruise, and Charlie had a feeling that that was down to Neil rushing about and telling people not to mention it. A few days later, however, he got a letter from his parents telling him that he was staying with Neil for the next holidays (and to behave himself).

Mutual protection.

 


End file.
